The Sum of Our Actions

Posted Friday, December 12, 2008, at 12:40 PM

In 1909, Oliver P. Smith developed a mechanical rabbit for use in dog racing. He hired Edward J. O'Hare, a lawyer in St. Louis, to help patent the device. Smith and O'Hare placed the device in dog tracks, most of which were owned by the Mob in those days, in Florida, Massachusetts and Illinois.

Smith died in 1927 and O'Hare gained control of the rights to the rabbit for himself. O'Hare soon divorced his wife and moved to Chicago with his three children: Butch, Patricia and Marilyn.

Al "Scarface" Capone took an immediate liking to Edward J. O'Hare and brought him in as a major partner in the Hawthorne Kennel Club (dog track) in Cicero. Although dog racing was illegal in Illinois at the time, Capone continued to operate the track while the legalities were tied up in court for years.

Capone and O'Hare soon gained control of dog tracks in Boston, Tampa and Miami. When the authorities closed the Cicero dog track, Capone and O'Hare converted it to a horse race track, named Sportsman's Park, with O'Hare as president.

Edward J. O'Hare also performed many legal services for Al Capone and his Mob associates, from murder, prostitution and gambling problems to setting up elaborate real estate and stock transactions. He was a crooked lawyer doing business with ruthless gangsters in a politically corrupt city.

But Edward J. O'Hare was also a devoted father. When his son, Butch, graduated from high school, he had a burning desire to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. This was a problem for Edward because entry into the service academies required the backing of the local representative in Congress.

A reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, John Rogers, had been a longtime personal friend and knew Edward O'Hare wanted his son to go to Annapolis. Rogers also had a friend who was a federal prosecutor assigned to bring Al Capone to justice.

Through Rogers, the prosecutor made a proposal to the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, who then approached Congress with a plan. If Edward O'Hare would cooperate with the Feds, his son Butch would be admitted to the Naval Academy.

Edward O'Hare agreed.

Soon thereafter, Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

In 1937, Butch O'Hare graduated from Annapolis.

On November 8, 1939, as Capone was due to be released from prison, Edward J. O'Hare was gunned down, in his car, by two men with shotguns, at the intersection of Ogden and Rockwell in Cicero.

On December 7, 1941, 28-year-old Lt. Butch O'Hare was transferred from his base in San Diego to the U.S.S. Lexington aircraft carrier.

In February of 1942, Lt. O'Hare and another pilot were flying single-engine Grumman Hellcat fighter planes in the area of the Gilbert Islands. All the other aircraft were on the carrier being refueled.

Lt. O'Hare spotted nine Japanese twin-engine bombers zeroing in on the U.S. fleet below. The other pilot quickly discovered his .50 caliber machine guns were jammed.

Lt. O'Hare swooped into the enemy squadron alone and opened fire, single-handedly taking out five of the nine bombers, causing enough distraction to allow other fighters to take off from the carrier and join him.

For his actions on that day Lt. Butch O'Hare was designated the U.S. Navy's first "Ace" of World War II and immediately promoted two ranks to Lieutenant Commander.

On November 26, 1943, Lt. O'Hare was shot down while on night patrol near Tarawa and lost at sea.

In 1949, in Butch O'Hare's hometown of Chicago, they honored his heroics by changing the name of the Orchard Depot Airport to O'Hare International Airport. Today it's the busiest airport in the world.

Courage is not that absence of fear -- it's knowing something else is more important than fear.

Bret Burquest is a former award-winning columnist for The News (2001-2007) and author of four novels. He has lived in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Kansas City, Memphis and the middle of the Arizona desert. After a life of blood, sweat and tears in big cities, he has finally found peace in northern Arkansas where he grows tomatoes, watches sunsets and occasionally shares the Secrets of the Universe (and beyond) with the rest of the world.